I came across an interesting post from an Australian Entrepreneur saying that being in the middle of a cash raise and managing a growing company left him with little time to blog. I instantly thought of Duane Jackson over at Kashflow, who’s managing a move of his business and home, building a growing company and blogs regularly. I then came across a great blog post from Avner at Boxee who’s just announced a 6M investment from 3 VCs. There are a number of entrepreneurs who are building growing companies who blog regularly. In fact blogging is a major part of their business and it should be a part of any growing business here’s why.
Audience can lead to staff, partners and customers
sure not everyone who reads all the posts will become a costumer, but content drives visits and even if a small percentage of viewers become costumers it’s a good marketing channel – and more fun then banner ads or ad words.
Recruitment can be expensive. Finding the right people can be really tough. But having engaged readership allows you to channel the network. Using linkedin, twitter, facebook and your blog can help you find people who you like and want working for and with you.
Networking
Entrepreneurs blog and comment on one another’s blogs all the time. Finding partners and companies that you want to work with can be difficult. Through blogging you can build relationships with other companies that might offer a service that you need or find a partner to help plug gaps that you can’t plug on your own.
Communications
Blogs are a great way to announce what’s going on with your company, new features, new funding new staff, new everything. Let your costumers, partners and community share in your success and change.
So in a nutshell blogs are a marketing, communications, recruitment and strategic channel. To think of them as less would be a disservice both to the medium and to your own business.
At the same time, balance is important. The bee always asks me how I find the time to blog so often these days. The answer is I write quick posts and try to get the ideas out – this post took me 20 mins, while responding to emails, and instant messaging in the morning. I may not have the ideas perfect, but that’s okay, I can revise, comment or add another blog post. Getting the ideas out is what’s important to me, as a friend once told me, “Perfect is the enemy of the good”, but I’ve got another blog post in my head for later to discuss that idea further.
